Comments on: Satisfied Needs Don’t Motivate

By: Colin Weaver

Colin Weaver — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 05:01:05 +0000

Normal breeders are always going to carry value. The last few normal females I have are huge girls that will make a valuable addition to the collection of another breeder. For the person who owns a 2-gene or 3-gene male the normal female is still a great way to produce some cool stuff.

The baby normals I produce will be sold the same as they have been for the past 2-3 years: as pets. I don’t make them on purpose and I consider each of them to be a missed opportunity on a clutch that has a wide array of possibilities. A normal is a complete miss. A single-gene pastel or a black pastel or a spider is partial miss. Depending on time of year normals sell for somewhere between $15-$20. Selling 5-10 of them at each trade show helps to cover my fuel costs. Calling any successful hatching a “miss” is a bit callous to some, I’m sure. But I’m not running a conservation program. It takes a lot of money to keep this thing running and normals and single-gene animals simply won’t cut it.

I’m not there yet but I am definitely at the beginning stages of moving to replace many of my single-gene co-dom females, too. Pastels will probably be the first to get replaced with multi-gene animals. I can’t add females forever. As higher-end females are added I have to manage the size of the collection by selling off the lower-end animals. It’s weird to think of big pastel females as “low-end” but over the next couple of years that will become increasingly true.

By: Pitoon

Pitoon — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 14:12:27 +0000

Good read as always. So with the mentality of dom and co-dom morphs replacing the “normals”……what will you do with your normals that you produce at the end?……..give them away for free?………not produce normals?

I think it’s easier said then done.

Pitoon

By: Anthony Caponetto

Anthony Caponetto — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 14:51:26 +0000

Cue the Twilight Zone theme song…I’ve been thinking almost exactly the same thing lately.

Ball python morphs will be in pet stores everywhere in ten years – and yes, single gene males will be the start. This is good for a lot of us.

A) Having ball python morphs in pet stores will undoubtedly get more people interested in ball pythons. You know what happens when you go looking for a care sheet online. “Oooh, I didn’t know they came in that color.” Yep, and that color too…and now you’re hooked.

B) We (breeders) are so used to selling our CB normals for $20 that this will be a step up as normals are replaced by single gene co-dom morphs. Think about it…male single gene co-doms are essentially the normals of 2003 (statistically speaking). Why not offer these males to my pet stores for $30-40 or so? It’s not as if doing this will increase competition for me or you, or anyone else who does this on a serious level.

I’m all for it, but that doesn’t matter – it’s already happening now in specialty stores and I’m sure it will become even more commonplace once Petco starts doing it.